Saint's Hotel by M.I. Minaeva will come out in Fall of 2027 and we’ve seen a lot of questions about why it’s taking so long. A lot of shit has to happen before then. We are prepared to go deeper (and deeper…) on each phase as we get to it, but wanted to give you a road map, shine a flashlight down this dark and winding corridor if you will, so you can see what’s in front of you…

Right now, literally as we speak, a developmental editor is working through the manuscript. He’s getting his hands in there and squishing around inside of its guts. He’s thinking about: plot, pacing, structure, character development, what the hell is happening and whether it makes sense.

Also right now, we’ve started talking about cover art. Very fun stuff. We’re trying to distill the vibe of the book (check out our mood board post), floating concepts, and researching possible illustrators and artists.

We're also hyping you up with things like the LPOTL stickers and this post. And asking ourselves, what else can we do to make book publishing seem like a fast-paced, sexy, high-octane, non-stop thrill ride?

Every place that you buy books has a different way of doing business and we have to figure otu how to sell-in to all of them. Barnes & Noble, Amazon, airport shops, and indies all buy on their own schedules, so we pitch our books to sales reps who specialize in each one. We also make a catalog for bookstores and trade shows. There are more than 3,000 indie bookstores in the US along and each one operates completely independently. How do we reach these stores??!?!!

The book will go through several rounds of editing and proofreading. The dev edit. Then the line edit. Then the copyedit, which is more, like, grammar, punctuation, and catching things like "this character is listening to 'Fat Lip' in 1999, but hat song came out in 2001."

Once the cover is done and the manuscript is copyedited, we print ARCs or “galleys” (some cool industry lingo for you, there). They're early versions of the book that aren't for sale. They go to reviewers, booksellers, readers, and influencers (and you). In the months before publication, we want a few thousand people to have read this book already.

We tried to make this short but we’re only up to, like, March here?! And miles to go before we sleep… We will be giving you exclusive peeks at every step of the way so stick around. You’ll probably wish you never asked.

Remember, paid members get a front row seat to the whole process, EARLY copies of all books we publish under our imprint AND all of Last Pod's membership proceeds go to support Reading Is Fundamental, a foundation supporting literacy for children. Sign up today.